1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of providing customer service, and more particularly to a method and a system for providing customer service to a customer using a mobile device.
2. Related Art
Many business entities provide customer support services to ensure higher customer satisfaction. Indeed, certain business entities sometimes differentiate themselves from competition by having a better customer support service. Usually, business entities establish customer service centers to provide customer support services. A typical customer service center hosts a number of customer service agents (CSAs) to assist customers with their requests and queries. The business entities advertise their customer service numbers to the customers, which allows the customers to contact the customer service centers.
However, it is often expensive to maintain customer service centers. Further, many customers require support for routine queries or tasks, which do not necessarily require a human CSA. Therefore, many business entities augment their customer support services with self-service options for customers. The self-service options may include, for example, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, customer service web portals, and mobile device based applications (or mobile applications).
Typically, when a customer calls the customer service center, the customer is directed to an IVR system. The IVR system guides the customer through a process of self-servicing. Before self-servicing, the IVR system may optionally require the customer to go through an authentication process. In the authentication process the customer may be asked to provide his or her information, such as a personal identification number (PIN), social security number, date of birth, and the like. After successful authentication, the IVR system offers a variety of customer servicing options. For example, for a credit card customer, the customer servicing options may include making an inquiry about the account summary, transaction details, outstanding balance, payment due date, line of credit, and the like. Further, the IVR system may also provide the customer an option to speak with a CSA in case the customer is not able to self-service satisfactorily.
In IVR systems, when the customer exercises the option to speak with a CSA, the IVR system transfers the customer's call to a customer service center. Further, the IVR system sends the customer's state information to the customer service agent. The customer's state information includes details of the customer's self-servicing interactions with the IVR system. For example, state information may include the customer service options that the customer selected in the session, the last customer service option selected before deciding to speak with a customer service agent, and so on. This provides the CSA context about the task that the customer is trying to accomplish, thereby helping the CSA support the customer more efficiently. Along with the state information, the IVR system may further inform the CSA that the customer has already been authenticated by the IVR system, so that the CSA does not repeat the authentication process. Such sharing of information between the IVR system and the CSA provides for efficient processing of CSA requests, leading to greater customer satisfaction and reduced cost of maintaining the customer service center.
Besides IVR systems that allow customers to self-service, mobile applications allow a customer to self-service their requests or queries using an interface on a mobile device. Mobile applications for self-servicing may be native applications residing on the mobile devices that communicate with the business entity's database over a network. Alternatively, the business entity may offer a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) based self-service interface that customers can access from a WAP browser on their mobile device. Mobile applications have gained popularity and proven to be cost-effective. A customer may use the mobile application to authenticate himself or herself, and use the self-servicing options provided by the mobile application. In the case the customer finds the self-servicing options in the mobile application insufficient to address his or her request or query satisfactorily, he or she may choose to call a CSA through an advertised customer service contact number. Upon calling the customer service contact number, the customer is usually required to re-authenticate himself or herself. In addition, the customer is often directed to an IVR system that has similarly insufficient self-servicing options as the mobile application. After navigating the IVR system, when the customer finally speaks with a CSA, he or she often needs to restate his or her requirement to the CSA. This leads to a waste of the customer's time and proves inefficient for the business entity.
Given the foregoing, what is needed is a system, a method, and a computer program product for providing customer service through mobile applications in a convenient and effective manner.